Thresholds of Time

by Susan Weinberg

There is a sixth dimension beyond what is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears, and the sunlight of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination.

Many of us grew up with this rather poetic statement from the Twilight Zone delivered in a timbre of voice that we can still hear in our mind. We’ve talked in the past about twilight as a liminal place, the space between day and night. In this passage it is defined as a place of imagination, perhaps a place of creativity engendering both fear and possibility.

Our discussion today focused on thresholds as they relate to time. The rabbi asked us what our favorite time of day was. Many defined that time relative to light, often preferring morning light or light at dusk. Some preferred early morning when no one else is around, perhaps when they could be most present to themselves without distractions. "When is night?" he asked as we sought to find that arbitrary moment that constituted night.

The concept of time thresholds is deeply embedded in Judaism to an extent I had not fully appreciated.  Times are detailed for the earliest use of tallit, the latest shema, afternoon prayers and of course when Shabbat begins. Today we can google this information, but what did they do before watches and clocks? When my watch was recently being repaired, I couldn’t go an hour without looking at that empty wrist. How did we determine time without an instrument, be it a watch or an iphone?

We turned our attention to the Talmud where we learned that twilight is called bein hashemashos, the time from sunset until three medium-sized stars appear. Since we don’t know whether this period belongs to day or night, we treat it conservatively and are not to light Shabbat candles during this time.

Halakhah, Jewish law, often sets the times when holidays begin or certain acts must occur. To this end they make use of the proportionate hour. The number of hours of light are divided by 12 to arrive at a proportional hour.

We turned our attention to our handout (Bameh Madlikin-Shabbat) where we discovered three measures of time in the ancient world. R’Yehuda tells us that bein hashemashos has arrived when the bottom of the sky has darkened, but not the top. When both are equivalent in color, night has arrived. R’Nechemyah proposes that after the sun sets, night arrives in the time it takes for a man to walk a half-mil, a Roman mile, which takes approximately 9 minutes. R’Yose asserts that it is in the blink of the eye and we cannot determine day from night. Rava tells us to light the Sabbath candles when the light is still visible above the palm trees. I assume time zone adjustments account for different trees of the region or we would be waiting a long time. On a cloudy day we are to look to the rooster or ravens or a wild gourd that bends towards the sun.  The natural world guides those without watch pieces.

The Pirkei Avot 5:10 teaches that ten things were created on the eve of the first Shabbat at twilight, a time of ultimate potentiality. Each contributes to significant transitional moments in our history.  There is the mouth of the earth, the well and the donkey, the rainbow, manna and Moshe’s staff, the worm that helped build the temple, letters, writing and the tablets of the ten Commandments, Moshe’s burial place, Abraham’s ram and some say the tongs that made tongs. It is as if a writer mapped out all their plot points prior to creating their story. (handout-Halakic-Times)

We concluded with two thought-provoking poems on the theme of time, A Man in His Life by Yehuda Amichai and A Prayer for Twilight by Devon Spier.(handout-Halakic-Times)  The rabbi left us with a question to consider. What is the bein hashemashos for us as artists when we find creative inspiration?

The second part of our discussion was artist-led. Noam Sienna explored the threshold between art and scholarship, a place where he resides. Noam spoke of how each area informs the other through a feedback loop. He spoke of how he grew up in that world as both of his parents are engaged in art and scholarship. It was a short step for Noam to focus on the bridge that connects these two areas. By making his own paints and cutting his own quills, he felt that he developed deeper insight into his understanding of manuscript creation. He shared with us some of his work on micrography and his re-creation of damaged ketubot. Rather than passing through the threshold to a new world, Noam lives between two worlds drawing from both of them.

Sarah Routman led the second part of the hour with an exploration of the broken heart. Sarah’s training is in photography and creative writing. A divorce after 34 years, caused her to consider the threshold of being broken and how we reassemble ourselves after being broken. She introduced us to an exercise where we were to select a heart that she had created out of various found materials. We were asked to write of a time we felt broken, then break the heart. I struggled with two pliers, ultimately cracking my heart in two. We then were given an opportunity to mend it. While hoping to wrap mine in wire into a thing of beauty, my heart had other desires and kept splitting apart. Finally I sheathed it in a fishnet bag, a figurative net under its fall in this world to capture its broken pieces.  I found myself hearkening back to a line in the poem by Spier that seemed quite appropriate to our task, “And the fall and climb out of the breach, that break us and assemble us whole in the same breath.”

Hidden in Haggadot

by Susan Weinberg

With Passover fast approaching, our lab turned its attention to this important holiday. Noam Sienna joined the Artists' Lab to share his knowledge on the meaning hidden in medieval illuminated Haggadot. A talented calligrapher and illuminator, Noam pointed to his parents as a significant influence in his chosen direction.  His mother Rabbi Elyse Goldstein is an active feminist rabbi and writer. His father Baruch Browns-Sienna is a calligrapher who now works digitally. Noam grew up in a home filled with words and image.


Noam also was influenced by his professor Max Michael Epstein whose approach he supports and follows.  The approach says two things: 1) The makers of Jewish art were intentional in the choice of the images they used and 2) We need to bring an attitude of humility towards the art and consider what the original audience knew or saw that we might not know.

Most Haggadot have Biblical themed illustrations focused on the story of Exodus, often on full pages.  There are also images of the celebration of the Seder and the preparations for it. The third visual element often relates to the parts of the text, the four children or maror next to the blessing for it.  The Medieval Haggadot from before 1500 were luxury products, but were actively used as evidenced by wine stains and candle wax.

The Haggadot were written in Hebrew.  There were no translations until later and images were important as many did not read Hebrew.  Women were not educated as broadly so Haggadot for women were often heavy on the imagery. The Golden Haggadah was likely commissioned for a woman as it repeats an image of a woman throughout the Haggadah even when it is unexpected.

Noam pointed out a couple of interesting features in Haggadah images, some with meaning that we don't fully understand.  He showed one image of a seder with cats or dogs under the table. Both animals carry symbolism.

He also shared a image of the 1320 Golden Haggadah with the plague of frogs. This image is of Moses with his rod tapping a frog who in turn shoots out smaller frogs at the stand -in for Pharoah, the King of Spain.  Whomever was tormenting the Jews at that time became Pharoah in the Haggadah.  A little humor is hidden in this image.  The first frog is turned around, actually shooting frogs out of his behind.

There were often battles being waged with competing religious imagery. He first showed us an image of Mary, her infant and her older husband Joseph seated behind her on a donkey.  Contrasting with that is a similar image with a young Moses with his staff and a tree of life sprouting behind him. It is an image of potency. Behind him on a donkey is Zipporah with two infants. The subtext is this is a fruitful story unlike that of of Mary and Joseph.  There may have also been an element of masking, showing something familiar to Christian authorities who checked the manuscripts and had to approve them.

 Easter and Passover have visual links and the subtext in some Haggadot was that Easter is a mockery and perversion of Passover.  The process of making matzo is often shown to underscore there is no blood involved, an old trope often put forth by Christians of the time.

The more interesting elements are often hidden in the margins quite literally.  There Jews are often represented by hares, the subject of hare hunts, while inversions occur which show pigs or dogs serving the hares. The images above are from the Barcelona Haggadah at the British Museum.

The frequency of hare hunts in the Haggadah is attributed to the convergence of the German word for hare hunt with a mnemonic designed to remind us of the proper sequence of events when Pesach falls on a Saturday and Havdallah must be performed. The mneumonic YaKNeHaZ is an acronym  of the initial letters of five Hebrew words: yayin, kiddush, ner, havdalah, zeman.  It is a bit of whimsy that carries over to contemporary times, reflected in David Moss's Haggadah.

Moss used the eagle, a symbol for many countries, and in its claws places a rabbit. It is only in the last frame that the rabbit hops to safety.

Following Noam's presentation, Meryll led us in an exercise to think about how we would bring our creativity to our Seders this year.

We then welcomed several of the MCAD students from The People's Library.  The group began as a reading group and morphed into a student organized artist collective.  Their objective is to use art and education to address oppression in its many forms.

 They make use of exhibitions, community building, information sharing and knowledge building to accomplish their goals.

They have used screen prints to create signs for protests and put these skills to work with the eight words Robyn asked us to contribute on our work for our upcoming exhibition.  They took those words and made posters for each of us in a unique idea piece, personalized to our own community.